1-3 Raise size question

So low effort man what the hell

Stacks? Reads? In a vacuum, $100.

BTW, you ever going to acknowledge that you were wrong about combos in your QQ thread, in spite of your confidently "correcting" others?

$125

stack sizes?

i run bad with kings (havent won a more than a 10 bb pot at showdown with KK for probably 6 months, maybe more) so i might just shove for anything 150 bb or less. lol.

I was wrong, I was an idiot.

Stand up response. Now can you give us stacks and reads?

My question is why are you limping KK? I'd need a strong read that you are sure the table is going to raise to do that. A nice initial raise to 30 would have been good.

I have 300, other two have more than 300 each.

The sb is a rec player that seems to have an affinity for any 2 suited cards. The other player seems to be an ok player.

So effective stacks are 30BB with straddle on.

Grin and jam.

Jam 300 so they can put you on AK and call with tens.

Standard limp for me preflop, but that's how I roll.

I typically like to offer poor 8:1 IO with my sizing. So with $300 stacks, we'd technically only need to 3bet to about $65. But I think $75 is always being called if $65 is, so I'd do that, especially with AA and prolly KK. QQ/etc. (which will see a lot more poor flops) I might lean to $100. But with KK basically any size we think will get action is likely fine.

ETA: With a much shorter stack of like $200 I could get behind the rep AQs and jam technique. But for $300, I just don't see jams being called that often by worse (and we want a "pot odds" call here).

GcluelessLRRnoobG

I mean...I feel like the poker gods are going to punish you here, for your shenanigans, such that anything you do at this point is going to end up costing you money.

Just open KK for a raise. Now that someone else has raised, but to a weak-looking size of $25, and there's a call, I'm looking to go YUGE with my 3B size, hoping it looks bluffy, but ideally something still small enough that someone can 4B jam on us, and think we might fold.

If we're starting with $300 effective, then...I dunno. The math doesn't work out, because we're going to look pot committed as soon as we go over $90 or $100. I don't want to raise less than that. FFS, this is why I hate limp-3B'ing here, with the $10 straddle, in an LOL-stakes game, with $300 eff.

This would be so much easier if we just opened to $25 ourselves. UTG3 might have gone to $75. and we could just jam, instead of sitting here trying to maths.

I hate everything about this, but I think I just go $150, hope it looks bluffy / fishy, and if we get called, shove dark, before the flop. Maybe the poker gods will be appeased, and keep it clean.

I wouldn't bet on it, because those dudes are bastards, but it's the best idea I have here.

While opening to 10% of stacks is also fine / sets up a fairly easily playable spot, hoping our large EP open gets 3bet at your typical LLSNL table is optimistic at best (especially if we have a remotely tight image).

Gnothatin',justsayin'G

There's a $10 straddle on. Opening to $25 is 2.5x. Not really large.

No reads here. My table image is just this side of nucking futs, so my EP opens don't get much respect. I think if I was sitting to your direct left, and saw you open 2x, my cards would be in the middle before your chips.

DstraddleOC.

There's never any guarantee anyone is going to raise limpers; you can't count on that as part of your strategy - you can only control what you do, and in this case you should certainly raise the straddle. I'd go to $30. It's much higher EV than limping, it denies equity for other players, defines ranges more clearly, gives other players the chance to 3bet (enabling you to 4bet) and you get to play a much bigger pot with your premium hand that way. Assuming a heads up pot, standard low stakes bet sizes and a villain call down it compares as follows:

Limped pot: ($20 on flop) bet 8 ($36 on turn) bet 24 ($84 on river) bet $60 ($204 final pot).
Raised pot: ($60 on flop) bet 24 ($108 on turn) bet 70 ($248 on river) bet $150 ($548 final pot).

It often means you win about a 3x larger pot when you raise a street vs calling; so make sure you get every bit of value you can.

As played, with the raiser in position on you and a SB caller, I'd be going to about 5x here; $125 - and bigger if players are deep-stacked. Assuming effective stacks are $300 and that only the in position caller calls the raise, this is going to leave about a potsize bet behind. You can then balance and jam on the flop with 66% value and 33% bluffs, and it's nice to get the money in on the flop when out of position as it reduces the positional disadvantage (which is another reason to raise instead of limping preflop, especially when you're likely to be out of position in the hand). Or you can bet small on the flop and then jam the turn, which will be more like 80% value, 20% bluff.

Another issue with limp-raising here is that (at least in the case of most low-stakes players) it results in your going to the flop with a really narrow range of maybe QQ+ and AK/AQ. This is going to oblige you to use the AK and AQ hands as bluffs most of the time, and your overpairs as value - which is all pretty black and white and boring. A lot of players won't bluff with the AK/AQ hands here, so they become value-heavy in these spots (and easy to play against as a result). If you instead raise a standard EP opening range then you have a lot more to work with and a lot more is going on in the hand in terms of bluffs and blockers etc.

At what percentage do we need to be certain someone is going to raise in order for limping to be ok? 100%? 99%? Would 90% be acceptable? OP thinks it is "extremely unlikely" it won't get raised (and, sure enough, it did get raised).

There are lots of pros and cons to the LRR method (and mostly it should more about be getting yourself in spots that are good for you), but it isn't nearly massively more EV to open than to raise (especially this OOP, especially at a table where it is highly unlikely to limp thru) as a lot will have you believe, IMHO.

Ghasn'traisedasinglehandpreflopintheLJ-in~8yearsandIdoperfectly~fineG

Raising is higher EV than limping, so I do it every time. There are numerous other issues with limping, as I detailed in my post. It also gets very complicated if you start splitting ranges preflop, and also complicated to balance a limp-raising range postflop. Limp-raising ranges are also (usually) extremely well-defined and easy to play against. Limp-raising strong hands like KK or AA also makes your regular RFI range weaker, etc. The list honestly goes on and on.

What do you feel are the advantages of limp-raising? What range of hands do you like to limp-raise?

It is very easy to come up with a situation where this is obviously false (the case where the maniac behind us shoves blind if limped to but will look at his hand and make a decision if raised). Obviously a special case but just goes to show that not everything is clearcut as you think.

I mean, I won't get into all the pros and cons here cuz it probably isn't the place for it plus I've explained my take in lots of other threads ad nauseam (where the bottom line is *you do you* and it isn't nearly as bad as you think). Simply kinda backing up the OP here cuz a lot of people have jumped all over him for it, but it is a perfectly reasonable play (one of a few reasonable plays he could have made).

G/derail,imoG

I'm talking about on average, against the average player pool. Of course having a maniac who jams 100% of hands when limped to changes things; but in reality that is never going to be the case. Reality is absolutely clear-cut and there is zero doubt that raising with KK in EP is higher EV and wins much bigger pots than limp-raising does.

Limp-reraising in EP is one of the most transparent ranges in the game in my opinion, and I'm not in the business of giving my opponents free information like this. In my mind there is zero doubt that these hands should simply be in the RFI range with the rest of the EP range. That way the entire range remains stronger, you avoid the complication of splitting ranges preflop, and the strongest hands in your range are concealed by the fact that they RFI in the same manner as the weaker hands.

What normal live low stakes poker setups are you claiming that limping KK in EP is higher EV than raising, and how?

What you say is correct in a theoretical sense, but unless he is in an unusual 1/3 game, at least half the players have no clue what they are doing much less paying that level of attention to what you are doing. They play their cards. If they have JJ or AQ they will play them the same way if you open or lrr. Myself I have been on a 2 session cooler-athon where if I just stopped thinking and just played unbalanced would have avoided a lot of problems in these games where people show up with completely unexpected holdings.

Sure, and on average raising first in (instead of limping) is going to win a much larger pot against these players.

I'm guessing (?) there's a LRR thread (I'm too lazy to search for it) where all of this is kicked about, so I'm not going to go too in-depth here. But the main point is that a RFI+ method often gets you in very difficult situations (although not necessarily here with this micro stack in terms of BBs). The more competent you are in these difficult spots, the cooler you are with getting yourself into them; otherwise, you're better off setting up easy-to-play situations.

GonesizedoesnotfitallG

The SPR is much higher in limped pots than it is in single-raised pots.

Yes, it's difficult playing out of position when deep stacked; that's the nature of the beast, and there's no getting away from it. Limping instead of raising does not do much to address that issue. What are your reasons for thinking that doing so is setting up an easier-to-play situation? I'd argue the opposite and that, at most low stakes games, you're often going to get multiple limpers behind you and a check from the big blind, where you're suddenly playing 5-handed bingo with a massive SPR.

As I'm sure you are aware, the goal in poker is to make the highest EV decisions whenever possible. Preflop in EP with KK the highest EV decision is simply to raise. Yes, you're often going to get several callers in these games and, out of position against the table, you're going to have to check-decide most of the time. It's not easy, and there is no simple solution to this problem - but it's certainly made much easier by raising instead of limping. That way you narrow the field, define the ranges of your opponents much more clearly, give them the option to 3bet (after which you can 4bet and make the hand much easier to play), lower the SPR considerably (ideally turning postflop into a two-street game much of the time) and so on.